How women could ease the Korean crisis

By Gloria Steinem and Christine Ahn

September 3, 2015Updated: September 3, 2015 5:01pm

Photo: Chung Sung-Jun, Getty Images

U.S. activist Gloria Steinem (C) with other activists march to the Imjingak Pavilion along the military wire fences near the border village of Panmunjom on May 24, 2015 in Paju, South Korea. A group of female peace activists including U.S. activist Gloria Steinem and Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire march across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the North Korea to the South Korea to deliver a peace message on the International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament. The DMZ bisects the Korean Peninsula, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

U.S. activist Gloria Steinem (C) with other activists march to the...

After a marathon of emergency talks, the two Koreas called off a state of combat readiness and a border propaganda war last month. Both had been triggered when two South Korean soldiers were severely wounded by a land mine in the Demilitarized Zone, a narrow strip of land that divides the Koreas and is the last relic of the Cold War.

In May, we crossed the Demilitarized Zone with 28 female peace activists from around the globe to call attention to this symbol of unresolved war that has separated families for almost 70 years.

We are grateful that the all-male Korean delegation succeeded in defusing the crisis; however, we cannot help but wonder how the inclusion of female peacemakers could have addressed this militarized division and the still unended Korean War in a more transforming way.

Not only are women and children disproportionately affected by conflict, but, as the two Nobel Laureates from Northern Ireland and Liberia who walked with us in the Demilitarized Zone have proved, female peacemakers can succeed in ending conflicts when their governments cannot. Even the U.N. Security Council recognized this when it unanimously adopted Resolution 1325, calling for women’s participation in all peacemaking processes. The only problem: This has never happened.

So here, as female peacemakers, we offer a way to turn the Demilitarized Zone from a symbol of war and division into one of peace and unity.

First, Seoul and Pyongyang could begin to clear the Demilitarized Zone of its approximately 1.2 million land mines. Both Koreas could transform from being an example of intransigence and danger to one of hope, just by joining 162 countries — 80 percent of the nations in the world — in signing the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty to eliminate these indiscriminate weapons. It won’t end all conflict, but it will end mines.

Second, the two Koreas could allow more civilians to cross the Demilitarized Zone, the physical barrier that keeps the Korean people separated — not seeing, not knowing and not understanding one another. It was drawn by Cold War powers and sealed as a buttress between the two Koreas. Long-stalled family reunifications and civil society exchanges are vital now, but the insanity of this division needs revision.

Photo: Yonhap, AFP / Getty Images

A South Korean military guard post rises above the barbed-wire fence of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

A South Korean military guard post rises above the barbed-wire...

The only open road across the Demilitarized Zone is the Gyeongui Highway, which a few South Koreans travel by bus to work alongside North Koreans in the Kaesong joint economic zone. It’s the road we took, and although the road is paved, getting permission to traverse this no-man’s land was like navigating a diplomatic jungle. The Koreas should establish a commission to facilitate future requests for Demilitarized Zone, crossings because they will keep coming.

South and North Korean citizens cannot legally cross the Demilitarized Zone. We in the international community can — spiritually and physically — and so we must.

Lastly, we urge our leaders to formally end the Korean War with a peace settlement as promised 62 years ago in the Armistice Agreement by the signatories: North Korea, China, and the United States on behalf of the U.N. Command that included South Korea.

Three members of Congress who are veterans of the Korean War took Washington a step closer in July by introducing House Resolution 384, calling for an end to the Korean War. Voters should urge its passage and remind our leaders to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. Peace is too crucial to be left to politicians or only the male half of our world.

Gloria Steinem is an author and activist. Christine Ahn is the executive director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women walking to end the Korean War and reunite families.